Re: Cosmology

[Brian Whatcott <betwys1@SBCGLOBAL.NET>]

The date of the arbitrary fudge factor
identified by Planck which reconciles the Rayleigh-Jeans law
to the experimental black-body curve was 1900.
It's now initialized with  a letter that looks much like an 'h'.
Hope this straightens out the dateline.

Planck's remained a lonely voice until a patent clerk illuminated
a clean copper sheet with light of various intensities and
frequencies and used the same fudge factor to fit the
response curve.  This did snag a Nobel. What year was that?
 Can't recall.

Still,  Jack may have a point about my being behind the times.
 I thought that the inflationary big bang phase
requires the suspension of disbelief in hyperspeed.

 Restore my faith: tell me I have it worng!

Brian W

p.s. To haver:
 talk foolishly, babble;  vacillate,  hesitate
[COD 7th Ed.]

06:56 PM 6/19/2004,  Jack, you wrote:
> Hi all-
>         Brian's a bit behind the times and a bit off on dates.
>
> On Fri, 18 Jun 2004, Brian Whatcott wrote:
>
> > I am  not the one to poke fun at cosmogonists who seek to compose
> > the irreconcilable: I simply recall that the squirming point of the
> > fin du 19ieme century
>
>         "ultra-violet catastrophe" usually refers to early calculations in
> quantum electrodynamics.  Quantum mechanics was invented in the 1920's.
> What 19th century paper is referred to here?
>
> > was the ultra violet catastrophe, and the
> > comparable issue at the end of the 20th has been the mensuration
> > of time and space.
> >
> > Einstein havered with a constant to render variable
>
> Although I don't recognize the verb here, Einstein's constant was to
> render <static> the Schwarzschild solution to his equation. I don't
> recognize the meaning of "variable cosmogony".  Cosmogony means "1 : a
> theory of the origin of the universe
> 2 : the creation or origin of the world or universe"
>
> > his cosmogony,
> >   and more than one theorist is stringing together a pretty
> > necklace of dark masses, manifold dimensions and so forth.
> >
> > There will, I dare say, first be:
> > a resolution of the red shift redder than the preferred Universal age:
>
>         This was true for a short time, but the near precision
> determination of the Hubble "constant" has obvioated this apparent
> problem.
>
> >
> > then a reworking of the inflationary Universe:  - if you're going to
> >   believe in C, then act as though you believe in C,  oh ye of little
> faith!
> >
> > I could go on, but I won't.
> >
> > Brian W
>
>         The summary of the current measurements in the latest Physics
> Today was, to my mind, pedagogically top notch.  The evidence so far seems
> to bne consistent with a cosmological constant in the Einstein sense.

<snip>
   [Jack Uretsky]